of it all?”
Darius joined the boy and shared what little he had to offer with the only guest he had ever had in his home. “I have always believed destiny makes for strange bedfellows. But the concept that our interests could be aligned with one of those... things... is an anathema. Then again, he seemed equally disposed toward shock and dismay. For truth, those sin-eaters favor us in no greater regard than we favor them. We are but rats at their feet.”
Tohrment partook of the ale flask. “I should never wish to mix my blood with theirs—they disgust my senses. All of them.”
“And he feels similarly. The fact that his blooded son took the female and held her even for a day within his walls made him ill. He is as incented as we to find both parties returned unto their families.”
“But why use us?”
Darius’ smiled coldly. “To punish the son. ’Tis the perfect corrective action—to have the female’s kind rip his ‘love’ from him and leave him with the burden of that absence as well as the knowledge that inferiors had bested him. And if we bring her home safe? Her family will move and take her away, and never, ever allow ill to befall her again. She will live long on the earth and that sin-eater’s spawn shall have to know that for every day he draws breath. This is in their nature—and precisely the kind of soul shattering that the father could not attempt without you or me. That is why we were told where to go and what we would find.”
Tohrment shook his head like he didn’t understand the way the other race thought. “She will be ruined in the eyes of her bloodline. Indeed, the glymera will shun them all —”
“No, they won’t.” Darius held up his palm to halt the boy’s talk. “Because they shall never know. No one shall. This secret shall be betwixt me and thee. Verily, the sin-eater has no cause to come forward for his own kind would shun him and his—and thus the female shall be protected from the fallout.”
“How will we accomplish such a deceit with Sampsone, though?”
Darius brought the ale flask to his lips and swallowed. “Upon the fall of night tomorrow, we shall head north, as the sin-eater suggested. We shall find what is ours and bring her home to her blooded family and tell them that it was a human.”
“What if the female talks?”
Darius had considered that. “I suspect that as a daughter of the glymera she is well aware of how much she stands to lose. Silence shall protect not only her but her family.”
Although the foregoing logic assumed she was in her right mind when they got to her. And that might well not be the case, may the Virgin Scribe ease the female’s tortured soul.
“ This could be an ambush,” Tohrment murmured.
“Perhaps, but I do not believe so. Further, however, I am not afraid of any conflict.” Darius lifted his stare to his protégé’s. “The worst thing that can happen is that I die in the pursuit of an innocent —and that is the very best way to go. And if ’tis a trap, I will guarantee you I shall take out a legion on my way unto the Fade.”
Tohrment’s face positively shone with respect and reverence and Darius felt saddened at the pledge of faith. If the boy had had a real father, instead of a brutish lush, he wouldn’t have felt as such toward a relative stranger.
Wouldn’t be in this modest shelter, either.
Darius didn’t have the heart to point this out to his guest, however. “More cheese?”
“Yes, thank you.”
As they finished their repast, Darius’s eyes went to his black daggers, which were hanging from the harnesses he wore o’er his chest. He had a strange conviction that it wouldn’t be long before Tohrment got a set—the boy was smart, and resourceful, and his instincts were good.
Of course, Darius hadn’t seen him fight yet. But that would come. In this war, that would always come.
Tohrment’s brow furrowed in the firelight. “How old did they say she was?”
Darius wiped his mouth on a cloth and felt the nape of his neck get tight. “I don’t know.”
The pair of them fell silent and Darius guessed that what was suddenly in his mind was spinning in Tohrment’s as well.
The last thing the situation needed was a further, dire complication.
Alas, ambush or not, they were going up north to the coastal area the symphath had directed them to. Once there, they would head a mile out of the small village and find upon the cliffs the retreat the sin-eater had described... and they would discover whether they had been sent forth into a lie.
Or used to further a purpose that aligned both them and that whip-thin reptile.
Darius was truly not worried, however. Sin-eaters were untrustworthy, but they were compulsively self-serving... and vindictive even against their own young.
It was a case of nature over character: The latter made them a bad bet; the former made them utterly predictable.
He and Tohrment were going to find what they were in search of up north by the sea. He just knew it.
The question was, in what condition the poor female would be...
When John and Xhex finally reemerged from their little slice of privacy, the first stop was the shower in the locker room. And as food was mission-critical after all the exercise, they took turns with Xhex going first.
As John waited his turn out in the hall, it was funny—he should have been exhausted. Instead, he was energized, alive, coursing with power. He hadn’t felt this strong... ever.
Xhex came out of the locker room. “You’re up.”
Man, she looked hot as hell, her short hair curling as it air-dried, her body clad in scrubs, her lips red. Flashes of what they’d done together got him jazzed and he ended up backing his way through the door just so he could keep his eyes on her.
And what do you know, when she smiled up at him, his heart snapped in half: The warmth and gentleness in her transformed her into something north of lovely.
She was his female. Evermore.
As the door eased shut between them, he felt a marauding panic when the latch clicked in place, like she wasn’t just blocked from view, but gone entirely. Which was nuts. Crushing the paranoia, he showered quickly and pulled on scrubs, studiously ignoring how fast he went.
She was still there when he came out and though he meant to take her hand and head for the mansion, he ended up hugging her, hard.
The thing was, all mortals were going to lose the ones they loved. It was the way life worked. But for most of the time, that reality was so far off in the mind that it had no more weight than a mere hypothetical. There were reminders, however, and the almost’s, the near-misses, the oh-God-please-no’s, snapped your chain and got you to stop and feel what was in your heart. Like when a bad headache was just a migraine; or when a car accident totaled the station wagon, but the baby seats and the air bags saved all the lives inside; or when someone who had been taken came back to the fold... the aftermath shook you up and made you want to hold on to your person to steady yourself.
